The Almanac/Barbara Wood, 3/15/16. "County looks at adding billboards to public land."
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.... With visions of billboards erected in places such as Edgewood Park, which abuts I-280, Ms. Lennie Roberts (the Committee for Green Foothills' legislative advocate), a resident of Ladera, fired off a letter of protest to the supervisors. "Highway I-280 traverses one of the region's most scenic landscapes with unparalleled views of the Crystal Springs Watershed and Santa Cruz Mountains to the west and San Francisco Bay and the East Bay to the east," she wrote, saying the Committee for Green Foothills wishes to "go on record as strongly opposed" to the whole proposal. ... As for U.S. 101, Ms. Roberts wrote, "there is already a proliferation of billboards along this hevily traveled rouge. Views to the Views to the Bay and western hills are becoming obliterated, and soon may disappear entirely. The profusion of billboards along Highway 101 already creates distractions for drivers. It would be inappropriate for the County to add to these problems." Read article.
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The billboard proposal, still in a preliminary phase, will likely come before the board in coming months. 'San Mateo County shouldn’t be an agent for visual pollution,' Roberts told us." Next Door/General/County of San Mateo/Christa Bigue, 3/18/16, "...Ongoing revenue from a possible electronic billboard can be used to pay the capital and ongoing operating costs of projects that benefit our community like the Devil’s Slide trail and the addition over recent years of about 200 acres to the San Mateo County Parks system."
Note billboard photographs. Left. "Bla bla" from AdWeek/AdFreak/Gabriel Beltrone, 8/19/14,"Are highway billboards becoming the new home of High Art?" "Rabbit" from Joseph City, AZ, (for Jackrabbit Trading Post), the Library of Congress, AZ Central/USA Today, Kirsten Krakio, 1/16/15. Right. "Hell" by Brad A Hoffman from Clevland.com, 5/31/15, "Ohio highway billboards highlights... ". "Billboards lured Route 66 drivers to pull of the highway." "Canada" facepage image from Look Outdoor Advertising Co. Notable quote. "Our highway billboards could be our eco-economy" is a re-think of an original quote from Mayor Sue Digre, "our environment is our economy". See Fix Pacifica reprint, Pacifica Tribune/Jane Northrop, Staff writer, 12/26/15, "Sue Digre named Pacifica's mayor."
Posted by Kathy Meeh
23 comments:
This is probably the stupidest thing I have ever heard.
The scenic freeway with billboards.
Here is your sign you moron
The county already sent something out saying there wouldn't be billboards along I-280.
In other reported city news, Lost City Funds Found on front page of Pacifica paper last today.
With that extra four million bucks we can't help but be sitting pretty now.
All the Sky is Falling Nimbys wrung their hands in vain. I love it, but at least it kept them from sticking their noses into other areas.
Lori Tinfow deserves our thanks for finding the money and Mary Ann deserves our thanks for steering the money to Palmetto.
I love it when a plan comes together the balck guy on A Team used to say and I love this plan.
Mr. T!! I sat next to him on a plane once. That was my brush with greatness.
The amount of disinformation on this blog is incredible. The "balck guy" on the A-Team never said, "I love it when a plan comes together."
That was the tag line of Hannibal, played by George Peppard.
Get your s--- together, people!
You saw that on the A team TV show.
Maltbie, John, has been County Manager (salary $300,000+, and double dipping from two pensions) for far too long, and this is completely 100% his brainstorm. It reflects poorly on his mental capacity and faculties. He has retired, unretired and retired again.
Supervisor Horsley et al: how giving this guy his heap of thanks for all he's done, and a super duper gold extra special genuine rolex watch, and how about bringing someone fresh and dynamic who is clever and can think on their feet like the Deputy County Manager Mike Callaghy, Julie Underwood from Daly City, Magda Gonzalez from Half Moon Bay or anyone else?
Perhaps this report was not meant by Maltbie for public consumption, especially with it's catchy title, "Let's Put Billboards on Highway 101 and 280 cuz it will make us oodles of money"....but it has been consumed by the public, and this kind of goof is not what the County Manager is paid the big bucks he's paid to let out on blast to the media. If Trump were here he'd say, "You're Fired", and if Maltbie was running Pacifica with a harebrained billboard scheme like this, he'd be run out of town. And his little dog too!
1146 guess what, salary and pensions are both legal and ethical according to State guidelines.
Don't like the law, consider contacting State Senator Jerry Hill with your contributed "There oughta be a law..or not" suggestion. One of the top line categories listed on that site is "submit your bill idea".
How do we pay for public amenities, including open space improvements becomes the series of questions?
You've named a bunch of local government officials and how "clever" they are. What financial solutions do you imagine they might suggest to pay for open space amenities "... like the Devil’s Slide trail and the addition over recent years of about 200 acres to the San Mateo County Parks system," (from the related SJ Mercury News article).
My bias, the road advertising I like were those recalled as a child passenger: "Berma Shave", (a series of small consecutive funny message rural area roadside signs).
To adult drivers in an urban area, however, the large billboard signs are distracting (some more so than others); then there's the question of ugly.
1146 Burma Shave
944 Hannibal Smith
920 If they found $4 million and spent $1.5 million, what is the city doing with the other $2.5M of the found funds?
More Palmetto monkey business?
Shouldn't we wait until El Niño is over and make sure it's still there?
We did not find the missing 4+ million. We "found" $1.5 million that has been sitting in a fund somewhere since 2008: Money we have been paying interest on, but which (given where rates have been since 2008) has not earned us anywhere near the amount we have shelled out. The fact that this money was "forgotten" for so long (assuming that is the real story) should scare us all.
Hannibal was the one on the A-Team who said "I love it when a plan comes together." He was played by George Peppard who, as far as I can tell, was a white dude.
Mr. T played B.A. Baracus.
Please don't sully the reputation of the A-Team.
207 A) Where can I vote for you? B) Would you take a look at Pacifica's books? Just 5 minutes of your time and we'd have ALL the answers. HazMat suit required.
Find the missing money? Where did you get that from?
The only thing we found out was that we were missing five and half million not four million.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, 5:05 PM, but I'll pass. I don't like reading tragedies.
949 Oh, how I love a clear-eyed realist with my morning coffee! A city's finances should be measurable, accurate and always accountable, but, in Pacifica when it comes to finances we really don't even know what we don't know. People, this is not supposed to be one of the mysteries of the universe. Count the fucking money and do it right!
No, no, no, 9:35 AM. Perhaps you didn't hear Tinfow's pronouncement from on high, but we don't need a forensic audit. She did an in-house audit months ago that was perfectly adequate!
*trips over $1.5 million of undiscovered city funds stuffed in a shoebox*
For those unaware, what 11:05 am said actually occurred.
11:05-- thanks for the laugh. It's funny because it is true. For 9:20 (March 23), this is literally how it went down (taken verbatim from City Council meeting minutes available here):
http://pacificacityca.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1097&Inline=True
During the March 9, 2015, Council meeting discussion, Council member Nihart remarked that she remembered funds being added to a bond sale around 2008 to pay for Phase I of the Palmetto Streetscape project, and that those funds should still be available for the project.
Finance staff had no information about such bond funds and was not aware of any other funds earmarked for the Palmetto Streetscape project.
[Editorial note: THIS came well after the non-forensic accounting Tinfow said she was perfectly satisfied with]
However, Council member Nihart’s assertions led staff to dig into the past bond documents and attempt to recreate the history to determine if she might be right.
Staff brought in financial advisor Peter Wong, who had assisted with the issuance of the Waste Water bonds in 2014, to help with the research and confirm whatever findings were discovered.
After completing the research, it was discovered that there are, indeed, unused funds sitting in a trustee account that resulted from the issuance of Certificates of Participation in 2008.
Say Good Night, Gracie.
It's kinda sad that people are criticizing the current administration and council for just sorting out the mess (and for taking the time to do it properly) created by the council and the administration of 10 years ago.
For once, can we put the blame where it really lies, instead of shooting the messenger?
Kinda sad that we write checks till they bounce and just try to tax our way out of it when we live beyond our means.
It's kinda sad that people are criticizing the current administration and council for just sorting out the mess (and for taking the time to do it properly) created by the council and the administration of 10 years ago.
For once, can we put the blame where it really lies, instead of shooting the messenger?
No one can possible know where the blame really lies, because no one has a clues as to what happened to the missing money, what it was spent on, etc.
The current crew assured everyone that all was in hand -- they had gone over the books with a fine toothed comb and everything was going to be super swell going forward. No need for an outside party to perform a forensic audit, no sir!
Then, oops! Looky there! $1.5 million dollars they missed. Think about that. We're not talking a couple grand that someone hid away in an obscure account somewhere -- this was one point five million dollars in American money just sitting in a bank account that we totally forgot about and didn't catch in our totally awesome self-audit.
BLAME EVERYONE!
Hey, 4:13 PM...no one from this current administration and council took the time to do *anything* properly. That's why we're continuing to locate financial accounts a halfway decent audit should have turned up.
413, yeah, 358 would like to see that forensic trail nail his 4 NIMBY City Council buddies of 8-10 years ago. Sure, he would laugh and laugh.
That 8-10 year ago City Council terminated our qualified, competent City Treasurer, namely because she advised the obvious, this City needs economic development.
A forensic City audit over 10 years could be quite expensive, and so far our City Manager and Executive Team do not think "sloppy bookkeeping" warrants that kind of scrutiny (or paranoid search) leading to clues of malfeasance.
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